Obama’s Waterloo or Ours
Jul 23, 2009 Current Events
Posted by
G Miller
There is a bill coming out of congress that purports to help with the healthcare situation in the country. About this bill, Senator Jim DeMint stated, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Well I say that it is either his Waterloo or the Waterloo of our American freedom.
As an aspiring independent person, I would like to go in to business for myself. There are many reasons for me to do this; I think that I have unique talent for what I do, I am tired of working for people who do not have my family interests in mind, and I love the free market in healthcare benefits. Right now the freest healthcare market is in the individual policy market. The inequalities in that market are more due to the employer-coverage dominance and government regulation than due to “evil insurance” providers.
Right now, if I want to get an HSA and Catastrophe coverage I can do so with a variety of providers. No employer or government can say no to me. This is because my state has elected to be liberal in the classic sense regarding healthcare administration. Other states have chosen to hurt themselves on this issue.
On page 16 and 17 of this healthcare bill, I have learned that freest market in healthcare will disappear. It clearly states that only current policies can be held and new policies will not be allowed. Despite the fact that this takes away liberty from me that government has no right to take, the result is bad as well. Those policies held prior to the law will discontinue as providers will withdraw and I will be left with only the government as an option.
I will not be sold on promises of great government care. Even though I do not trust these promises coming out on this bill, there is more to it than results for me. This is a question of rights. The government has no right to take from me the choices that God and nature grant me. This goes to the very heart of this nation’s founding.
Many will argue that liberties have already disappeared on this matter, because of prior laws and the monopolization of HMOs, etc. This scenario that has lead us to the precipice of this loss of liberty is entirely of government making. It was not a conspiracy, but what economist Thomas Sowell calls a “Conflict of Visions”. My vision and that of the founding fathers is a constrained vision: aggregate Human nature is fixed, but predictable. People are prone to corruption, waste, and abuse when granted power over others.
The “Un-Constrained Vision” that is the opposite, points to a false malleability over aggregate human nature. Human nature is only malleable, in my view and the view of our founding, on the individual level and this only in humility not unearned power. This bill is unearned power to unconstrained government. The results: withdrawal of former promises made to the old (cut backs in Medicare with no free replacement), high taxes to all brackets in the form of income taxes and “fees” that amount to the same thing, loss of liberty which is enough for me to not support this bill, and many many more negatives.
This is the waterloo of the American experiment. Fore, a loss of liberty on this issue will allow losses in so many areas and not just the atrocious loss in the area of provider choice alone. This will mean that any law that can be interpreted to lower “public healthcare costs” will be justified no matter what the loss of liberty.
This is our battle of the bulge for the independence of human freedom. Which Senators and Congressmen will be our Patton on this matter?
What we need:
- Freedom in choice at all costs (employers offering a policy must also offer a cash alternative with the same tax-protection)
- Freedom of group benefits outside of employer benefits (companies and individuals may pool risk as they choose)
- Expansion of HSA options (any bank may offer them and any plan may be coupled with them)
- Healthcare regulation be returned to its constitutional regulators in accordance with the 10th amendment (to the states and the people respectively)
- State providence of risk-pooling conditions for those un-coverable by regular market coverage (pre-existing conditions)
- Abolition of federal mandates on “concierge coverage” (3rd party payment of regular expenses that could just be payed by HSA money rather than through mounting higher premiums)
Liberty is the key here! Liberty is our heritage and Liberty is our solution. Let the virtue of the people be the solution and let them live or die by it.
Tags: Healthcare, Liberty